Before fancy graphics, coherent writing, and cultural sensitivity, the world was a badder place. Join us as we remember a time when having three frames of animation for your sprite was a luxury and the only requirement for rescuing the president from ninjas was being sufficiently bad.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Let's Talk About Rambo: Episode 19: Fire in the Sky

We catch up with Rambo and the team as they're chilling out at Boston Harbor for the launching of the world's most advanced nuclear sub. They're all introduced to the sub's captain, who has the voice of Optimus Prime. But Rambo rudely doesn't hear the introduction because he is too busy scoping out chicks from the balcony.

Ina special treat for the sub launch, a skydiver drops down with the ceremonial bottle of champagne to be smashed. The captain ties a rope to it and swings it at the sub. But when it hits, the champagne bottle EXPLODES!

You see, the skydiver was Sgt. Havoc in disguise.

The explosion leaves a hole in the side of the sub, which is how SAVAGE hijacks it. They jump in the hole and then drive the sub away. Apparently the hole lets people inside, but does not affect the sub's underwater movement?

As a distraction while this is all happening, Gripper attacks the harbor with a super old ship (we're talking from 1700s here), the kind with giant sails and cannons.

Luckily, Rambo and team hop into Old Ironsides to do battle!

Huzza!

The captain gives Rambo a naval sword used by famous American captain John Paul Jones. Rambo swings on a rope over to the enemy ship and swashbucklingly fights SAVAGE, including doing that classic "slide down a sail using your knife" move.

But soon enough he's trapped belowdecks while SAVAGE scuttles the ship. However, escape is easy for Rambo: he just blows a hole in the side of the ship with a grenade and swims out through the in-rushing water.

A physical impossibility for anyone but him.

However, his team thinks he's dead. "I'm sorry about Rambo," the captain tells Trautman.

"Don't be!" Trautman says. "He knew the risks!" (Cold!)

So Rambo gets to shore and everybody's trying to hug him and stuff. But he's too busy scanning the crowd for SAVAGE agents. And what do you know: the very chick he was ogling at the start of the episode is actually evil!

She hops in her car and takes off. Rambo jumps into the Attack Jeep (which he has parked in the lot like it's a normal car!) and gives chase.

She gets into a large float plane to escape, but Rambo boards it too just before she takes off. The woman and her copilot, Nomad, quickly eject, leaving Rambo stuck on a crashing plane! He grabs the map to their base and then bails out himself, using an inflatable raft to cushion his landing into the ocean many thousand feet below as though he just watched Temple of Doom.

He gets picked up by the team, and is presented with Turbo's latest invention: a rocket-powered, one-man submersible! He takes it to SAVAGE's island base, where they have gathered all the evil leaders of the world to have a bidding war over the stolen sub.

After a quick martial arts battle with the evil woman, Rambo is thrown into the cove inside the island, where he is pursued by a school of great white sharks!

However, Rambo quickly tames one of the sharks and makes it his mount, riding it throughout the base, jumping in and out of the water like a dolphin, while avoiding gunfire.

I think it's important to note that in this show's animators' eyes, great white sharks are entirely white(ish).

He gets into the sub somehow and scares Warhawk and company away by tricking them into thinking flares are dynamite. Rambo chases them to the deck, where they get into a chopper to escape, but not before leaving him with a present: a ticking, conventional warhead that's about to explode!

Gripper asks Warhawk why he didn't use a nuke. Warhawk has to explain that a nuke would also kill them, then calls Gripper an idiot.

Rambo, faced with certain death, picks up the missile, which is about 10 feet long and 5 feet in diameter and must weigh hundreds and hundreds of pounds, and throws it into the ocean.

For his bravery, the ship captain says Rambo should be rewarded and offers to let him keep that antique sword.

Badass name for a sword, you have to admit.

Rambo says, "It sure came in handy," (note: he never once used it ever) "but a good deed is its own reward!"